The pizza I was doing this sunday was very easy to open, I could have easily have made a bigger pizza with the weight of the dough I was using. So if I wanted to make this recipe.

We just got back from the NAPICS show and here is the dough formula that we were using to make a great New York style pizza.

Flour: (Superlative) 100%Salt 1.75%Sugar 1% only if you want to hold the dough up to 3 days, if you will only hold the dough two days delete the sugar.Yeast IDY 0.375%Olive oil 3%Water 57% (variable)

Put water (65F) in mixing bowl, add the salt and sugar to the water, add the flour then the IDY. Mix for 2 minutes at low speed, add the oil, mix 1 minute at low speed then mix 8 minutes at medium speed. Target finished dough temperature is 80 to 85F. Immediately scale dough pieces and form into balls, place into dough boxes and wipe with salad oil, cross stack in the cooler for 90 minutes then down stack. Dough is ready to use on the following day. Remove some of the dough from the cooler and allow to warm at room temperature for 90 minutes before shaping the dough into skins. The dough can be used over the next two to three hours. This dough hand tosses beautifully and has great resistance to tearing. It baked up great in a deck oven (baked on the deck) at 525 to 550F.

It is a link you put up on another post I was reading and I wanted to do. The other thing to is that I am doing all this my hand and not a mixer. Would that have to worked into the recipe?

I'm not sure I understand the question in the last sentence of your post but if you are asking whether the dough make using the NAPICS dough recipe can be hand kneaded, the answer is yes but you may have to knead a bit longer because 57% hydration will yield a fairly stiff dough. I see no reason not to use a higher hydration, as I did myself in one of my efforts.

How high should I go, I liked the way the dough was in my last batch and that was at 70%? I know you were saying most all pizzerias use a lower hydration around high 50's low 60's because it is easier to train people and make a bigger pizza like an 18". Is there a taste difference from higher or lower hydration levels, because if there isn't I think I will stay with the higher hydration. Does having a higher hydration make it hard to make a bigger pizza like a 18"? In the instructions it says cross stack and down stack what is that. Does he mean put the boxes like this http://www.doughmate.com/productTrays.htm then put them regular on top of each other.

As I mentioned before, your hydration is not really 70%. It is around 63%. To calculate the hydration value for yourself, divide the weight of water called for by your dough recipe by the combined weight of the All Trumps and the semolina flour. It should be 63.3%. The expanded dough calculating tool shows 70%, but that is the weight of water divided only by the weight of the All Trumps flour. The tool can't handle the calculation of the hydration for multiple flours in the same recipe.

If you make two doughs that are essentially identical except that one of the doughs has a higher water content (higher hydration) than the other, and the two doughs are baked the exact same way, then there may be textural differences because one crust will have more water and maybe be softer in the crumb. There may be some taste differences because of differences in the ways the crusts bake, with one being dryer and crispier than the other or caramelizing more than the other. Maybe the impact on the palate of any sugar or oil in the dough may be different. However, in the real world, you decide on what hydration works best for you, for whatever reason, and bake the dough until it has the proper texture and color. If you plan to use Superlative flour in the NAPICS recipe, you perhaps will want to try either the 57% hydration recited by the recipe or increase the hydration to around 60-62%, which is more likely to be closer to the rated absorption value of that flour. If you plan to replace part of the NAPICS formula flour with semolina flour, you may want to shoot for an actual hydration of around 62% that reflects the two flours. I have never worked with the Superlative flour so I can't be more exact. You will have to do some experimenting.

A higher hydration dough ordinarily is harder to open up to a pizza size of 18" because it is a much softer and looser dough. You might sometime make a 65% hydration dough, let it ferment for a day or two in the refrigerator/cooler and try making an 18" skin for yourself. For comparison purposes, you might make a similar dough but with 58% hydration dough.

Cross stacking and down stacking are procedures that are used in the process of getting dough boxes with dough balls in them into the cooler. The cross stacking allows the dough balls to cool down faster and not generate a lot of heat that might get trapped in the dough boxes and cause the dough balls to overferment ("blow"). It also helps keep moisture down. After the cross stacking, the dough boxes are down stacked. In the photo you referenced, the top two boxes in the stack to the left in the photo are shown in the cross stack position. The two white dough boxes in the center of the photo are shown in the down stack position.

That's another thing I wanted to ask, what is superlative flour? I get the hydration thing a little better now, I did the math you were saying and it comes out to .63330925 which is 63.33% thanks for all the help. I think you should go be a teacher or something at a cooking school if you already aren't one.

The Superlative flour is a spring wheat flour milled by General Mills. You can see the specs at http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/Flour_SpecSheet/Superlative53521(West).doc. The protein content of that flour, at 12.6%, is essentially that of a bread flour. The King Arthur bread flour has a similar protein content, at 12.7%, but it is not bleached or bromated and it does not contain ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), which is a dough conditioner.

Is it alright if I use the All Trumps with this recipe, or should I get a superlative one? I am going to make this one this week and the Ovaltine recipe the week after. See how they compare to the one I have been doing for the last 2 weeks.

Sorry for the bad pictures they were taken with my iPhone. They either look to dark or to light in the picture but everything came out really well. I have to say though I think I like the recipe I was using before with the semolina. When I was stretching the balls out they were stretching "to much", as in I couldn't control it as much like the other dough I did last week.

6.2oz Sargento part-skim mozz, and 1.8oz sargento parm blend for total of 8oz cheeseI don't usually use Sargento, but it's all I had laying around. My norm is Grande 50/50 East Coast Blend or Polly-O 50/50.Cooked at 550 for 8.5 mins4 mins on 18" screen, 4.5 mins direct on stone

The dough is very resistant to tearing... I was easily able to hand toss and stretch it.

As I have speculated before, I believe that NAPICS uses the dough formulation you used because it is almost foolproof, which makes it ideal to use at an event where a lot of attendees are present and looking for foolproof dough recipes. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the dough formulation will produce the best pizza. In your case, how would you compare your recent pizza with others you have made using your standard or similar/comparable dough recipes?

I can see why they use this formula to demonstrate tossing/stretching... it holds up really well due to the reduced water content. Using the same amount of flour for an 18" pie as I normally do, this one will hold more toppings and remain "crunchy".. again, due to the lower hydration. Taste wise... it's pretty good... I am going to put in just a bit more water next time 1-2% and add 5g of garlic powder and 5g of onion powder like I normally do. I think people that like a crunchier pie would favor this formula. If you want the kind of slice that sags while you hold it, then you'll need to cook this type of pie at a lower temperature, and possible not on a stone. The bottom got a nice char on it, and overall I would say that it was chewy but crispy too. I think somewhere between this and my normal recipe would be great for a pie that you can really toss, and throw a few toppings on. My Wife really liked it... I speculate due to it being very crunchy/crispy. I'll take some photos of the next pie sliced up. I have some mozz/prov blend I want to try on it.

I suggest readers that have had a hard time tossing a pie to try this formula... Pete's right, it's foolproof and very forgiving and durable. You really gotta stretch it good and it's very elastic.

If you (and David) want to see the NAPICS 2005 dough formulation, see Reply 18 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,660.msg9727.html#msg9727. I eventually tried the recipe myself and reported on my results at Reply 33 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,660.msg26116.html#msg26116. I originally thought that the high amount of yeast, 1% IDY, was to make a same-day dough (which might have been true) but I found that I could cold ferment it for about two days. It's possible that the higher yeast was to compensate for the higher usage of salt and the addition of sugar at 3%. As between the 2007/2009 NAPICS dough formulation and the 2005 NAPICS dough formulation, I would go with the 2007/2009 version, especially for a cold fermentation application.

If you are interested in seeing the NAPICS 2008 dough formulation, see Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6184.msg53808.html#msg53808. I did not try that particular dough formulation because I did not have a ready source of organic high-gluten flour at a reasonable price. In the most recent King Arthur catalog ("holiday 2009" edition), a 3-lb. bag of their organic high-gluten flour sells for $10.95, and that is before shipping charges are added ($6.50 to Texas if I don't buy anything else).

I wish I could make mine that big, mine are usually 12.5"-13". I liked this recipe in how it was easy to open the balls, but the taste of the banch I made the week before was way better. My mom, neighbors, and friends said the samething. It was almost as easy to open as this one was, very tear resistant and good crust color and flavor. I have done this NAPICS recipe, the previous one that I am talking about I have done with and without adding Caputo dough aged for a day, and a batch with Ovaltine. I would have to say that the batch without the caputo dough added was my best so far. I think I am going to just keep doing that one and perfect it, make some tweaks here and there and see whats good. What does adding garlic or onion powder do?

IMO, adding garlic and onion power give the crust a better overall taste... It's not really detectable as to what it is when people eat it, but when I add it, people usually prefer the taste of the crust w/ the garlic and onion poweder. For a 12-13" size, I would say start with 2.5g garlic and 2.5g onion powder and go from there.. just add in a few more drops of water to compensate for it... Good luck!